Reuterdahl: Artist Champion of the United States Navy

Photo, Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution
B A T T L E OF T H E M O N I T O R A N D T H E M E R R I M AC
M a r c h 9, 1862
Oil Painting by Henry Reuterdahl
National Gallery, Washington, D. C.
REUTERDAHL—ARTIST CHAMPION OF THE
UNITED STATES NAVY
E . GUSTAV JOHNSON
The Battle of the Monitor and the M e r r i m a c was fought
at Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862. When the fiftieth
anniversary of this Civil War battle was observed in 1912
a Swedish American artist, Henry Reuterdahl, who by that
time had gained a reputation as an excellent marine painter,
depicted the famous conflict in an oil painting which now
hangs in the National Gallery of the Smithsonian Institu­tion
in Washington. Today, fifty years later, as we now ob­serve
the centennial of the naval combat, we take another
look at that painting, which many experts regard as a
masterpiece.
It may be of interest also to take another look at the
painter himself, the creator of that painting—a Swede who
became an ardent champion of the United States Navy and
its need of being brought up to date, and whose marine
paintings belong to the history of American art.1
Henry (originally Henrik) Reuterdahl was born in Mal­mö,
Sweden, on August 12, 1870, the son of a merchant,
Fredrik Reuterdahl and his wife Augusta Johanna, nee
Drake. The father, a member of a large and distinguished
family, was a nephew of the church historian Henrik Reu-
1The biographical sketch has been compiled from several sources: Mantle
Fielding, Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers (New
York, 1945, p. 299); Dic t i o n a r y of American Biography, XV, 511-512; "Who's
Who In Art" in American Art Annual, 1923; Who's Who in America, 1918-19;
Biographical Sketches of American Artists, publ. by Michigan State Library
(Lansing, 1924, p. 266); F. U. Wrangel, Ströftåg i New York och annorstädes
i U S A (Stockholm, 1907, pp. 213-217); "Malmöpojken som blev en av U S A 'S
främste marinmålare" in Nordstjernan (N. Y.), August 19, 1953 (evidently
"borrowed" from some Swedish periodical). Obituaries: New York Times,
Dec. 24, 1925; American Art News, Jan. 2, 1926; Outlook, Jan. 6, 1928.
39
terdahl, member of the Swedish Academy, and Archbishop
of Sweden.
In Stockholm, to which city the family had moved when
Henry was a child, the future American marine painter re­ceived
his education. His teacher in art at Norra Latinläro­v
e r k e t was a prominent artist, Conny Burman, whose in­struction
was the only formal art education young Henry
received. In 1886-87 he was enrolled in the School of Tech­nology
but he had no interest in pursuing that line of study.
He was more interested in art, in drawing and sketching,
and in spite of his father's opposition to his becoming an
artist he engaged himself to the decorator and scene painter
at the Royal Opera House, Andreas Brolin. His employ­ment
there, however, did not please him for, since he was
just an apprentice he had to act as a general flunky for
the artists in the master's studios. Then together with a
companion he rented quarters in the "old city" and struck
out for himself as a free lance artist. He painted water
color scenes, preferably choosing motifs from the "inner
city"—the quaint centuries old houses and rows of small
shops along narrow streets. (Today there are six of these
aquarelles preserved in the Northern Museum in Stock­holm.)
He also engaged in making illustrations for the
weekly magazines, among them N y Illustrerad Tidning
(New Illustrated Times), Hemvännen (Friend of the
Home), and Svea. Thus he lived a few years in a bohemian
atmosphere, his boon companions being Hjalmar Eneroth,
later to become well known as an etcher and book illus­trator,
painter and writer of historical essays and popular
books, and Pelle Molin, the poet and creator of Ådalens
poesi.
Then came the year 1893 and the great World's Fair in
Chicago. Reuterdahl, then 23 years old, was sent by the
weekly magazine S v e a to make illustrations and drawings
of the wonders of that exhibition. While in Chicago he also
made illustrations for American periodicals, notably the
Chicago Graphic and Leslie's W e e k l y . He soon made up
his mind to stay in America, and establishing connections
40
with publishers of periodicals in the East, he moved to
New York.
During the Spanish-American War, Reuterdahl served as
a correspondent for the periodical Truth and also wrote
about naval operations in the Caribbean for several other
periodicals. He married a young lady of Icelandic extrac­tion,
Pauline Stephenson, in Chicago on July 16, 1899 and
shortly afterward established his permanent home in Wee­hawken,
New Jersey. From this time on he specialized in
naval pictures and soon became a semi-official naval artist.
He designed trophies for target practice and made decora­tions
for the wardrooms of battleships. He illustrated John
D. Long's History of t h e N e w American Navy (1903). By
Collier's W e e k l y he was commissioned to make a tour of
the European navies, the result of which was a series of
pictures of the "Navies of the World," published in Col­lier's.
Scores of his illustrations also appeared in the Scien­tific
American, in Scribner's, and in other American maga­zines
as well as in the London Graphic.
Although Reuterdahl was not professionally trained in
naval affairs nor a marine engineer, he was a keen observer
and intelligent scrutinizer of naval equipment and manage­ment.
In his writings he made himself an advocate of the
Navy, urging the duty of sustaining the sea forces, of un­derstanding
the work of naval men, and of becoming fa­miliar
with naval problems. Of the many papers he con­tributed
to magazines, the most significant was his "Needs
of the Navy," published in McClure's, January, 1908, in
which he called attention to numerous weaknesses of the
United States Navy, its lack of torpedoes and destroyers,
and the ineffectual design of its battleships. His main con­tention
was that the American Navy was woefully unpre­pared
for war. He attacked the bureau system in the Navy
Department with so much cogency that his argument led
to an investigation by the United States Senate.
In his article Reuterdahl had made it plain that he was
not condemning the Navy itself but its: equipment and the
41
bureaucracy that hampered its development. He said, in
the conclusion of his article:
No one can be more appreciative of the American Navy
than myself after ten years of familiarity with it—a closer
sea-going acquaintance I believe, than any other civilian
possesses. I believe there are no better men or officers in
any other navy in the world; I am perfectly familiar with
the marvelous improvement in the gunnery of our Navy
during the last ten years; I am personally confident that
this personnel, with its extraordinary skill, would fight
valiantly in battle against any navy in the world. This is
not a criticism of our Navy, it is a criticism of its equip­ment—
of poor tools which are given our men to work
with, and of the system which is responsible for giving
them these tools.2
The following year the Outlook published an article on the
modernizing of the Navy, by John D. Long, former Secre­tary
of the Navy, illustrated with many drawings by Reu­terdahl.
As a semi-official naval artist, Reuterdahl was attached
to the battleship Minnesota during the fleet's cruise around
South America in 1913 and during the cruise of the A r ­kansas
to the Mediterranean the same year. He was pres­ent,
too, at the Vera Cruz campaign in 1914.
Reuterdahl, enthusiastic about his art, also found time
to teach at the Art Students' League, New York, and to
paint privately and send pictures to many exhibitions. At
the Panama Exposition in 1915 he was awarded the silver
medal. He painted panels for the steam- yachts Noma,
Viking, and Vagrant, owned respectively by Vincent Astor,
George F. Baker, Jr., and Harold S. Vanderbilt. In the
permanent collection of the Naval Academy, Annapolis, he
is represented by a group of ten paintings donated by
George von L. Meyer, secretary of the Navy in the cabi­net
of President Taft. His "Combat Between the Monitor
and the Merrimac" painted in 1912, is in the National Gal-
* McClure's, Vol. XXX, No. 3 (Jan., 1908), p. 263.
42
lery of Art, Washington, and his "Blast Furnaces" belongs
to the Toledo Art Museum. Other works are in the Naval
War College, Newport, Rhode Island, and a large canvas,
"We Are Ready Now," is in the Missouri State Capitol at
Jefferson City. Culver Military Academy and the Kalama­zoo
Art Association also have paintings by Reuterdahl. In
1914 the Cincinnati Museum held an exhibition of his works.
In the Swedish-American art collection donated by a Chi­cago
art patron to Smålands M u s e u m in Växjö, Sweden, are
two of his marines: "Strange Ship" (an American man-of-war
in a Chinese port), painted in 1918; and "Warship" (a
destroyer in heavy seas) painted in 1912.
In 1917 Reuterdahl was made a lieutenant in the Naval
Reserve and became the official artist of the U. S. Navy
during the First World War. Numerous drawings and
posters made by him were used during the War by the
Navy Department. He was made a Lieutenant-Commander
in 1918. A recruiting sign painted by him for the Navy was
reproduced in the Y e a r b o o k of the Architectural League of
New York in 1918 as an example of excellent art. The 1923
issue of the same Y e a r b o o k contains a reproduction of his
"The Navy Put 'Em Across," a panel in the House Naval
Committee Room, Congress, Washington, D. C.
"His art is rare for it is inborn," said a Swedish fellow
artist who visited Reuterdahl in 1907, "it is interesting be­cause
its expression is fully modem, its grand lines are
sweeping and the coloration is enchanting."3
We may quote also an American comment on Reuter­dahl
as an artist:
Henry Reuterdahl stands alone in his wonderful realis­tic
paintings of steamships laboring in tempestuous waters.
He has dramatized the warship, the destroyer, the liner
and the 'tramp' as no other painter and shows in his exhi­bition
pictures a high indication of his attainment as an
illustrator—and vice versa.4
8 Wrangel, op. cit., p. 217.
* Biographical Sketches of American Artists, Michigan State Library, p. 266.
43
Reuterdahl and his wife lived for many years in an
artistic home in Weehawken, New Jersey, where the marine
painter had a view of the sea he loved. He died on De­cember
21, 1925 in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington,
D . C, where he had been confined for several months. His
wife died only a few weeks later. In the Arlington Na­tional
Cemetery are two headstones, one marked Henry
Reuterdahl, New J e r s e y , L i e u t . C o m d r . U . S . N a v y , D e c . 2 1,
1925, the other Pauline S., Wife of Lieutenant Commander
Henry Reuterdahl, U S N R F , Died F e b . 10, 1926.
44

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

All rights held by the Swedish-American Historical Society. No part of this publication, except in the case of brief quotations, may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the editor and, where appropriate, the original author(s). For more information, please email the Society at info@swedishamericanhist.org

Photo, Courtesy, Smithsonian Institution
B A T T L E OF T H E M O N I T O R A N D T H E M E R R I M AC
M a r c h 9, 1862
Oil Painting by Henry Reuterdahl
National Gallery, Washington, D. C.
REUTERDAHL—ARTIST CHAMPION OF THE
UNITED STATES NAVY
E . GUSTAV JOHNSON
The Battle of the Monitor and the M e r r i m a c was fought
at Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862. When the fiftieth
anniversary of this Civil War battle was observed in 1912
a Swedish American artist, Henry Reuterdahl, who by that
time had gained a reputation as an excellent marine painter,
depicted the famous conflict in an oil painting which now
hangs in the National Gallery of the Smithsonian Institu­tion
in Washington. Today, fifty years later, as we now ob­serve
the centennial of the naval combat, we take another
look at that painting, which many experts regard as a
masterpiece.
It may be of interest also to take another look at the
painter himself, the creator of that painting—a Swede who
became an ardent champion of the United States Navy and
its need of being brought up to date, and whose marine
paintings belong to the history of American art.1
Henry (originally Henrik) Reuterdahl was born in Mal­mö,
Sweden, on August 12, 1870, the son of a merchant,
Fredrik Reuterdahl and his wife Augusta Johanna, nee
Drake. The father, a member of a large and distinguished
family, was a nephew of the church historian Henrik Reu-
1The biographical sketch has been compiled from several sources: Mantle
Fielding, Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers (New
York, 1945, p. 299); Dic t i o n a r y of American Biography, XV, 511-512; "Who's
Who In Art" in American Art Annual, 1923; Who's Who in America, 1918-19;
Biographical Sketches of American Artists, publ. by Michigan State Library
(Lansing, 1924, p. 266); F. U. Wrangel, Ströftåg i New York och annorstädes
i U S A (Stockholm, 1907, pp. 213-217); "Malmöpojken som blev en av U S A 'S
främste marinmålare" in Nordstjernan (N. Y.), August 19, 1953 (evidently
"borrowed" from some Swedish periodical). Obituaries: New York Times,
Dec. 24, 1925; American Art News, Jan. 2, 1926; Outlook, Jan. 6, 1928.
39
terdahl, member of the Swedish Academy, and Archbishop
of Sweden.
In Stockholm, to which city the family had moved when
Henry was a child, the future American marine painter re­ceived
his education. His teacher in art at Norra Latinläro­v
e r k e t was a prominent artist, Conny Burman, whose in­struction
was the only formal art education young Henry
received. In 1886-87 he was enrolled in the School of Tech­nology
but he had no interest in pursuing that line of study.
He was more interested in art, in drawing and sketching,
and in spite of his father's opposition to his becoming an
artist he engaged himself to the decorator and scene painter
at the Royal Opera House, Andreas Brolin. His employ­ment
there, however, did not please him for, since he was
just an apprentice he had to act as a general flunky for
the artists in the master's studios. Then together with a
companion he rented quarters in the "old city" and struck
out for himself as a free lance artist. He painted water
color scenes, preferably choosing motifs from the "inner
city"—the quaint centuries old houses and rows of small
shops along narrow streets. (Today there are six of these
aquarelles preserved in the Northern Museum in Stock­holm.)
He also engaged in making illustrations for the
weekly magazines, among them N y Illustrerad Tidning
(New Illustrated Times), Hemvännen (Friend of the
Home), and Svea. Thus he lived a few years in a bohemian
atmosphere, his boon companions being Hjalmar Eneroth,
later to become well known as an etcher and book illus­trator,
painter and writer of historical essays and popular
books, and Pelle Molin, the poet and creator of Ådalens
poesi.
Then came the year 1893 and the great World's Fair in
Chicago. Reuterdahl, then 23 years old, was sent by the
weekly magazine S v e a to make illustrations and drawings
of the wonders of that exhibition. While in Chicago he also
made illustrations for American periodicals, notably the
Chicago Graphic and Leslie's W e e k l y . He soon made up
his mind to stay in America, and establishing connections
40
with publishers of periodicals in the East, he moved to
New York.
During the Spanish-American War, Reuterdahl served as
a correspondent for the periodical Truth and also wrote
about naval operations in the Caribbean for several other
periodicals. He married a young lady of Icelandic extrac­tion,
Pauline Stephenson, in Chicago on July 16, 1899 and
shortly afterward established his permanent home in Wee­hawken,
New Jersey. From this time on he specialized in
naval pictures and soon became a semi-official naval artist.
He designed trophies for target practice and made decora­tions
for the wardrooms of battleships. He illustrated John
D. Long's History of t h e N e w American Navy (1903). By
Collier's W e e k l y he was commissioned to make a tour of
the European navies, the result of which was a series of
pictures of the "Navies of the World," published in Col­lier's.
Scores of his illustrations also appeared in the Scien­tific
American, in Scribner's, and in other American maga­zines
as well as in the London Graphic.
Although Reuterdahl was not professionally trained in
naval affairs nor a marine engineer, he was a keen observer
and intelligent scrutinizer of naval equipment and manage­ment.
In his writings he made himself an advocate of the
Navy, urging the duty of sustaining the sea forces, of un­derstanding
the work of naval men, and of becoming fa­miliar
with naval problems. Of the many papers he con­tributed
to magazines, the most significant was his "Needs
of the Navy," published in McClure's, January, 1908, in
which he called attention to numerous weaknesses of the
United States Navy, its lack of torpedoes and destroyers,
and the ineffectual design of its battleships. His main con­tention
was that the American Navy was woefully unpre­pared
for war. He attacked the bureau system in the Navy
Department with so much cogency that his argument led
to an investigation by the United States Senate.
In his article Reuterdahl had made it plain that he was
not condemning the Navy itself but its: equipment and the
41
bureaucracy that hampered its development. He said, in
the conclusion of his article:
No one can be more appreciative of the American Navy
than myself after ten years of familiarity with it—a closer
sea-going acquaintance I believe, than any other civilian
possesses. I believe there are no better men or officers in
any other navy in the world; I am perfectly familiar with
the marvelous improvement in the gunnery of our Navy
during the last ten years; I am personally confident that
this personnel, with its extraordinary skill, would fight
valiantly in battle against any navy in the world. This is
not a criticism of our Navy, it is a criticism of its equip­ment—
of poor tools which are given our men to work
with, and of the system which is responsible for giving
them these tools.2
The following year the Outlook published an article on the
modernizing of the Navy, by John D. Long, former Secre­tary
of the Navy, illustrated with many drawings by Reu­terdahl.
As a semi-official naval artist, Reuterdahl was attached
to the battleship Minnesota during the fleet's cruise around
South America in 1913 and during the cruise of the A r ­kansas
to the Mediterranean the same year. He was pres­ent,
too, at the Vera Cruz campaign in 1914.
Reuterdahl, enthusiastic about his art, also found time
to teach at the Art Students' League, New York, and to
paint privately and send pictures to many exhibitions. At
the Panama Exposition in 1915 he was awarded the silver
medal. He painted panels for the steam- yachts Noma,
Viking, and Vagrant, owned respectively by Vincent Astor,
George F. Baker, Jr., and Harold S. Vanderbilt. In the
permanent collection of the Naval Academy, Annapolis, he
is represented by a group of ten paintings donated by
George von L. Meyer, secretary of the Navy in the cabi­net
of President Taft. His "Combat Between the Monitor
and the Merrimac" painted in 1912, is in the National Gal-
* McClure's, Vol. XXX, No. 3 (Jan., 1908), p. 263.
42
lery of Art, Washington, and his "Blast Furnaces" belongs
to the Toledo Art Museum. Other works are in the Naval
War College, Newport, Rhode Island, and a large canvas,
"We Are Ready Now," is in the Missouri State Capitol at
Jefferson City. Culver Military Academy and the Kalama­zoo
Art Association also have paintings by Reuterdahl. In
1914 the Cincinnati Museum held an exhibition of his works.
In the Swedish-American art collection donated by a Chi­cago
art patron to Smålands M u s e u m in Växjö, Sweden, are
two of his marines: "Strange Ship" (an American man-of-war
in a Chinese port), painted in 1918; and "Warship" (a
destroyer in heavy seas) painted in 1912.
In 1917 Reuterdahl was made a lieutenant in the Naval
Reserve and became the official artist of the U. S. Navy
during the First World War. Numerous drawings and
posters made by him were used during the War by the
Navy Department. He was made a Lieutenant-Commander
in 1918. A recruiting sign painted by him for the Navy was
reproduced in the Y e a r b o o k of the Architectural League of
New York in 1918 as an example of excellent art. The 1923
issue of the same Y e a r b o o k contains a reproduction of his
"The Navy Put 'Em Across," a panel in the House Naval
Committee Room, Congress, Washington, D. C.
"His art is rare for it is inborn," said a Swedish fellow
artist who visited Reuterdahl in 1907, "it is interesting be­cause
its expression is fully modem, its grand lines are
sweeping and the coloration is enchanting."3
We may quote also an American comment on Reuter­dahl
as an artist:
Henry Reuterdahl stands alone in his wonderful realis­tic
paintings of steamships laboring in tempestuous waters.
He has dramatized the warship, the destroyer, the liner
and the 'tramp' as no other painter and shows in his exhi­bition
pictures a high indication of his attainment as an
illustrator—and vice versa.4
8 Wrangel, op. cit., p. 217.
* Biographical Sketches of American Artists, Michigan State Library, p. 266.
43
Reuterdahl and his wife lived for many years in an
artistic home in Weehawken, New Jersey, where the marine
painter had a view of the sea he loved. He died on De­cember
21, 1925 in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington,
D . C, where he had been confined for several months. His
wife died only a few weeks later. In the Arlington Na­tional
Cemetery are two headstones, one marked Henry
Reuterdahl, New J e r s e y , L i e u t . C o m d r . U . S . N a v y , D e c . 2 1,
1925, the other Pauline S., Wife of Lieutenant Commander
Henry Reuterdahl, U S N R F , Died F e b . 10, 1926.
44